Innocent
by tvfan69
Summary: Based on the Taylor Swift song "Innocent". The turtles are still out searching for Karai, but what happens when one of them splits from the group? *One-Shot*


"Donnie give it up," Raph groaned from his position on top of the water tower. The four of them were out looking for Karai, again. It had been nearly three months since they last saw her, and though he's not here tonight Casey still gets all weird every time she's mentioned. But Donnie's been scanning around the rooftops with his mutagen tracker, convinced that it'll pick up on her mutant DNA, so far it hasn't. "That thing is a hunk of junk," he continued.

"No it's not Raph, it's worked before and it'll work again." The purple banded turtle insisted while he scanned over the same ledge he had been scanning for the past ten minutes.

"Raph you said you were going to sit up there to watch for her, not yell at Donnie." Leo reprimanded from his position on the edge of the building, never breaking his focus on the rooftops of the city as he watched for their sister.

With a roll of his eyes Raph jumped off the water tower "First of all I'm not yelling. Second, this whole search is useless. Karai's gone Leo and she's not coming back." He said and the silence was heavy, Raph expected to just sigh in defeat and unenthusiastically return to his post, but then Mikey spoke up.

"You only say that because you don't care about her," he muttered. All eyes turned to the youngest turtle, who was currently sitting sideways on the ledge with his knees up.

"I never said-" Raph began to growl

"You didn't have to" Mikey interrupted, Raph stared at him in shock.

"You don't trust her, you've said it yourself that you come on these searches just to shut Leo up. She's our sister Raph!" Mikey nearly shouted, by now he stood up and faced his hotheaded brother. "But you don't care! She's made mistakes and that's all you see. She's risked her life for us, but you don't care because you remember the mistakes. She's out there all alone and if it was Donnie, or Leo, or me you still wouldn't care!" Mikey cried; Donnie and Leo looked at their little brother in complete shock, whereas Raph just looked angrier than ever.

"That's a lie! If it was one of you out there-" he started to shout

"It IS one of us!" Mikey shouted over him.

Raph didn't know what to do. Mikey was right, their sister was out there alone and Raph was barely trying to help her at all. But he does care, Mikey was wrong about that. He was being called a liar; he HATED being called a liar. He didn't know what to do, he knew what he wanted to do and it seemed to be the only option. Mikey had stepped away from the ledge by now, so Raph acted on his anger and shoved him to the ground.

"Raph!" Leo scolded and Raph turned around.

"What so now I'm the bad guy?!" He asked incredulously but his three brothers just stared at him.

With a growl he realized that, in their eyes at least, he was the only one who had taken things too far.

"Forget it, I'm out of here" he said before leaving the rooftop, knowing full well that none of them would bother coming after him.

* * *

"Who does Mikey think he is? Saying I don't care!" The red-banded turtle ranted to himself as he moved from rooftop to rooftop. "I care! But he just doesn't get it!" He continued to shout before he finally came to a halt to catch his breath. "No one does," he muttered.

For a minute he was silent as he thought over the conversation. He supposed Mikey must truly believe that he doesn't care, but he does. He cares so much it scares him. He didn't at first; at first he really did hate Karai. He knew that she couldn't be trusted, but once he found out the truth he instantly cared. He wasn't open about like Mikey; he's never been good at being open. But once Karai believed the truth he had been all set to forgive her, then he learned that he had been right and she did have a tracker. He regrets giving her such a hard time, he didn't miss the crack in her voice that night that told him he might have been pushing her to tears, but he kept going. It was something in his nature, some sick sense of justice that had to watch the people who hurt him suffer but then hated it when they did. When Tiger Claw took her he wanted so badly to run after her, but Mikey was hurt and she could take care of herself. Every time they lost her it hurt him, he would never tell the guys but on those night he would either cry himself to sleep or he wouldn't sleep at all. Sure he told the guys that he only went on the searches to shut Leo up, but that was a huge lie meant to save his reputation.

"I guess you really did it this time," a voice snapped him out of his thoughts, a familiar voice. Raph whipped around to see Karai of all people, yes people as in human, sitting on the ledge of a billboard not far behind him. "Left yourself in your own warpath I mean" she clarified and briefly Raph wondered how much she heard, then he realized he hadn't actually spoken many of his thoughts aloud. "So what does Mikey claim you don't care about?" She asked as she jumped down from the billboard, her voice sincere.

"You wouldn't understand" Raph huffed, embarrassed to admit that his and Mikey's fight had been about her.

"Try me," She challenged but Raph only chuckled as he sat down on the ledge of the building.

"Leo said that once, I ended up right." He laughed but when he heard her footsteps approaching he knew that she still wanted him to tell her.

"You always loved the idea on fighting, even before Splinter began teaching you Ninjitsu. You wanted to grow up and become a hero, but you also have this natural fire inside of you." She began before sitting down next to him. "You thought the fire could fuel your fighting, but every time you let it you lose control. You want to be tough. You want people to see you as a rock and someone they can depend on to not let emotions get in the way. You think the only way to do that is to not feel anything, but you feel everything. So you bottle it up and let them think you're stone cold. Every time you lose your temper it kills you, because you only wanted to make things better. Then you lose your mind trying to fix things."

At first Raph couldn't believe what he had just heard, she DID understand.

"How did you-"

"Takes one to know one".

For a minute it was silent, the two of them just sat there dangling their legs over the edge of the roof.

"Things were tough as a kid but god was it easier" Karai finally said and Raph nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, back then if I pushed Mikey down it would be forgotten in twenty minutes," he said and Karai chuckled.

"Yeah, we thought we thought we knew everything but if I knew even half of what I know now…" She trailed off, the smile fading from her face.

"Hey" Raph said, but she wouldn't look at him. "We've both done things too painful to speak of" he assured her and she sighed.

"I relive it every night," she confessed in a whisper

"Me too" Raph admitted even more quietly than his sister, though she still heard it and looked at him in surprise before it faded.

"You know, we had problems back then but looking back I think we were both pretty innocent" she said, Raph considered reminding her that they didn't know each other as children but decided against it. She wasn't wrong about him.

"You think we still are?" He asked turning to face her.

Her eyes never left the skyline as she shrugged "you might be, I think I lost my innocence a long time ago." She answered regretfully.

"Um, not to bring up a subject that could potentially kill me but how are you…?" Raph trailed off, unsure of how to ask his question.

Karai, however, got the message and laughed as she faced Raph again. "Shredder depended on Stockman for those worms. The things don't live longer than two months. Stockman also turned me human before the mind control, the worm had been injected with my mutagen." She explained, part of Raph thought that was cool. The other part had some less pleasant thoughts on the matter.

"Wait you've got a dead worm in your head?" He asked, playfully poking the side of her head.

Karai laughed as she swatted her brother's hand away, for a moment almost believing that they could be family and have fun like this.

"No I threw it up," she admitted and Raph smirked, though a part of him felt sick at the memory of when he had been cured of Shredder's mind control worms.

The two were silent for another minute and as much as Raph hated to kill the good mood, he knew that he had to.

"You know the guys are really worried about you" he told her, she responded by hugging her knees to her chest.

"Karai-" he started but for what seemed like the umpteenth time that night he was cut off.

"Just tell them I'm alive." She said, avoiding his gaze.

With a sigh he looked back out at the skyline, then down at his feet. "Karai I know what it's like not to understand why people love you. After all the mistakes you make, all the times you hurt them, they would still do anything for you, even if you don't always think so. I have lost my temper so many times, and I wouldn't blame the guys if they let me fall to my death one day. But I know that they wouldn't, and you know it to" he said, glancing over at her but she still wouldn't look at him. "There are some things in life you can never understand, but I know you know what you need to do," he said, standing up and offering her his hand.

But again she wouldn't even look at him.

"It's not too late Karai, we're still growing up. You're still an innocent." He assured and finally, with a small smile, Karai let him pull her to her feet and the two went home.


End file.
